Portable computing devices (also referred to herein as handheld devices) such as personal digital assistants (PDAs) available from vendors such as Palm, Handspring, Hewlett Packard, Sony, Casio, Psion, have found increasing acceptance in the business world. Some users have a need to use their handheld devices to interact with enterprise business applications such as those offered by Siebel Systems, Inc., Oracle Corporation and others. These enterprise business applications can include large databases that a number of users may access and/or update at any time.
Providing access to enterprise business applications through a handheld device can encounter significant problems due to the relatively limited amount of computing power, energy storage and memory available on typical handheld devices. For example, a user may wish to extract data that resides in a server used in supporting an enterprise business application. In view of the limited resources of the handheld device, it is generally desirable that the handheld device be designed and configured to efficiently receive the extracted data.